Amazon appears to be interested in doing “last mile” logistics. “Last mile” refers to delivery from a final warehouse or distribution center to a customer’s door. Right now, Amazon relies mostly on UPS, FedEx, and the U.S. Postal Service to perform this part of the logistics function. Now Amazon appears to be threatening to take over the last mile as well. You can read more about this in “ Amazon Will Deliver Their Own Packages – Revolution At The Delivery Door, ” (Forbes, September 29, 2016). Considering what you learn in chapter 11 and in this article, what are likely the main reasons for Amazon to be considering this delivery [Continue Reading …]

For the last couple of decades, retailers have been experimenting with technology to address the part of grocery shopping consumers hate most – checkout! This USA Today article, “ Can Amazon Fix the Grocery Game? ” (December 8, 2016) provides a quick overview of six technology solutions that have been or will be used soon – from self-checkout to smart appliances. Do you think the new Amazon Go checkout system will revolutionize the grocery business? Which of the other solutions show the greatest promise? What criteria should be used to evaluate this type of technology?

The chapter-opening case for Bonus Chapter 2 focuses on the cross-functional relationships at IKEA. The case demonstrates how the global retailer’s functional areas (finance, production/operations, accounting, information systems and human resources) interact with marketing to increase its effectiveness. Cross-functional coordination may be most important in IKEA’s new-product development. This Wired article “ Behind the scenes at Ikea’s top-secret furniture lab ” (September 24, 2015) provides a great look into innovation and new-product development at IKEA. From the article, explain three examples that show how different functional areas of IKEA work with marketing to develop new products.

Whole Foods has seen its sales and profits decline recently. In response, the food retailer has opened some new stores under the name 365. Read more about 365 in this article “ Whole Foods Is Getting Killed by Aldi. Is a Millennial Grocer Chain the Fix? ” (Bloomberg Businessweek, June 20, 2016). What is the target market for Whole Foods new 365 stores? Is this different from a typical Whole Foods store? How is the 365 marketing strategy (compare each of the 4 Ps) different from that used by Whole Foods? Do you think it will work?

Powerful computers now allow software to read people’s emotions. Some of this new software and various applications are described in this article and the video below “ The Technology that Unmasks Your Hidden Emotions ” (Wall Street Journal, January 28, 2015, non-subscribers may need to click here ). How could a marketing manager for a retailer like Best Buy or a specialty store like say Victoria’s Secret. A bigger question might be whether retailers should use this type of information. Does it invade people’s privacy? How? Why?

As you may know, big data and predictive modeling are getting pretty darn good at predicting the brands or products an individual might want to buy. It is not hard to imagine a day (perhaps not not too far into the future) where retailers are so good at predicting that they know what we want or need before we do. Target stores already knows what brand of shampoo a customer buys — and that they buy it once a month. So what if they just placed an order for us and shipped it out? Would people be interested in this service? [Continue Reading …]

New social media tools are emerging all the time. Marketing managers should think about them as potential new tools to add to their Promotion blend. We hope L4Ps offers you some ideas that you won’t find in your textbook. Vine is a “mobile app that enables its users to create and post video clips” ( Wikipedia – link through for more details) . Think of it as Twitter for video — in fact Twitter bought Vine in October 2012. Videos are limited to six seconds. Some companies are finding creative ways to use Vine as a marketing communications tool, for examples see “ The 9 Most Creative (Least Gratuitous) Brand Vines ” (Co.Create May 24, 2013) [Continue Reading …]